Suzanne DeWitt Hall's blog highlighting the idea of a theology of desire, featuring the writing of great minds along with her own humble efforts at exploring the hunger for God.
(Note: Most of this blog was written under Suzanne's nom de couer "Eva Korban David".)

Saturday, October 3, 2009

He's built perfection out of hunger

The Rumi poem in the previous post from this morning echoes the theme of a separation between truth and love.

Strange paradise, complete with worms,monument of an obsessive will to fix forms;every apricot or yellow spot's seen so closely,in these blown blooms and fruit, that exactitudeis not quite imitation. Leaf and root,the sweet flag's flaring bud already,at the tip, blackened; it's hard to rememberthese were ballooned and shaped by breaththey're lovely because they seemto decay; blue spots on bluer plums,mold tarring a striped rose. I don't want to admirethe glassblower's academic replica,his copies correct only to a single sense.And why did a god so invested in permanencechoose so fragile a medium, the last materialhe might expect to last? Better proseto tell the forms of things, or illustration.Though there's something seductive in this impossibility:transparent color telling the live mottle of peach,the blush or tint of crab, englobed,gorgeous, edible. How else match that flush?He's built a perfection out of hunger,fused layer upon layer, swirled untilwhat can't be swallowed, won't yieldalmost satisfies, an artmouthed to the shape of how soft things are,how good, before they disappear